Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Google plans to invest $13 billion throughout 2019 in data centers and offices across the U.S., with major expansions in 14 states. This follows $9 billion invested in 2018 in data centers and office facilities.

For 2019, the investments will include data centers and offices across the U.S., with major expansions in 14 states.

In a blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai notes that Google is:

expanding its presence in Chicago.

developing new data centers in Ohio and Nebraska

expanding its Wisconsin office

doubling its workforce in Virginia

opening a new office in Georgia

expanding data centers in Oklahoma and South Carolina

developing a new office and data center in Texas

building a new office o=in Massachusetts

building its new Google Hudson Square campus in NYC

opening a new data center in Nevada

expanding its office in Washington

developing new offices in Los Angeles including the Westside Pavillion, and the Spruce Goose Hangar.

Cisco reported quarterly revenue of $12.4 billion for the period ending 20-January-2019, 7% year over year (normalized to exclude the divested SPVSS business for Q2 FY 2018). GAAP net income was $2.8 billion or $0.63 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $3.3 billion or $0.73 per share.

For Cisco, growth has picked up in EMEA. The enterprise and public sectors are doing well, while the Service Provider segment is the only one currently contracting.

Revenue by geographic segment was: Americas up 7%, EMEA up 8%, and APJC up 5%. Product revenue performance was broad-based with growth in Applications, up 24%, Security, up 18%, and Infrastructure Platforms, up 6%.

Product orders are growing at 8% Y/Y, with the Americas up 7%, EMEA up 11%, and APJC up 6%.

"We are very pleased with our strong performance in the quarter," said Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO of Cisco. "Our teams are executing incredibly well, aggressively transitioning to a software model and accelerating our pace of innovation. We are redefining and connecting every domain of the networking infrastructure to deliver the agility, operational efficiency and security our customers require to embrace multicloud, edge computing and digital transformation."

Cisco also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.35 per common share, a 2-cent increase or up 6% over the previous quarter's dividend. Cisco's board of directors has also approved a $15 billion increase to the authorization of the stock repurchase program.

CenturyLink reported revenue of $5.78 billion for the fourth quarter of 2018, compared to $6.01 billion for the fourth quarter of 2017 on a pro forma basis. Diluted loss per share was ($2.26) for the fourth quarter of 2018, compared to diluted earnings per share of $1.06 for pro forma fourth quarter 2017. There was a non-cash goodwill impairment charge for the consumer business of $2.726 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018.

In addition, CenturyLink's Board of Directors announced plans to reduce the company's annual dividend to $1.00 from $2.16, beginning with the Board's next dividend declaration.

"CenturyLink's focus on disciplined execution in 2018 enabled us to make significant progress integrating Level 3, including achieving our originally announced synergy target more than two years earlier than expected," said Jeff Storey, president and CEO of CenturyLink. "In 2019, we are shifting our focus from integration to transformation. We are focused on profitable revenue growth in our business markets and believe the scope and scale of our global assets, along with our innovative product portfolio, position us to succeed."

"In addition to this focus on growth, we are shifting our capital allocation priorities and reducing the annual dividend to $1.00 from the current $2.16. Strong business fundamentals allow us to make the important decision to lower our leverage target to 2.75x to 3.25x Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA and accelerate our timeframe to reach that target, while still returning significant cash to shareholders and continuing to invest in revenue and EBITDA growth initiatives."

On a conference call, CenturyLink disclosed plans to raise its CAPEX spending by approximately $500 million to expand its fiber networks, enhance its enterprise portfolio, etc.

Ixia Fabric Controller (IFC) for centralized management of NPBs to create a security and monitoring fabric that operates as a single, cohesive layer

“As the growth in data continues and service providers embrace virtualization, 5G and other new offerings, the need to ensure network performance, security and quality of experience is greater than ever,” said Mark Pierpoint, president of Ixia Solutions Group at Keysight Technologies. “Working with one of the world’s leading service providers, as well as our local partners, has enabled Ixia to deliver a worldwide visibility architecture which meets Telefónica’s need for a cost-effective visibility solution delivering unmatched business insight.”

Ixia visibility solution deployments have been completed for Telefónica in Spain, Germany, UK, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, and Centro America (Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama) with ongoing projects in several other locations.

Grupo de Telecomunicaciones de Alta Capacidad (GTAC) has deployed the Infinera mTera universal switching and transport solution to scale long-haul service capacity and increase efficiency in its nationwide fiber backbone.

The mTera deployment interconnects major cities across Mexico, including Mexico City, Estado de México, Guadalajara, Puebla, Hermosillo, Queretaro and Ciudad Juarez, among others. Working with the Infinera global services organization, GTAC was able to deploy and turn up end-user customer services over 51 sites in 10 weeks.

“We are excited to be a solutions partner to GTAC and help them transform their fiber optic infrastructure to deliver enhanced value to their customers,” said Bob Jandro, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Sales at Infinera. “In addition to providing a scalable foundation for growth, the innovative universal switching capabilities of our mTera platform make it an ideal solution for metro and long-haul core networks experiencing traffic growth driven by mobile, cloud and video services and applications.”

Minimize regens with reach of over 5,000 kilometers (km) in terrestrial networks and over 12,000 km in submarine networks

Most solutions on the market bulk encrypt all the data going through a transponder, providing no ability to differentiate services across the interface. Conversely, the mTera platform provides Layer 1 OTN data encryption in a multi-terabit, multi-layer switching platform, enabling network operators to differentiate services by selectively encrypting individual or multiple services. The optional Layer 1 OTN data encryption technology on the mTera platform is enabled via software and can be applied at wire speed to 100 gigabits per second, 10 Gb/s and sub-rate leased line services with Ethernet, OTN or SONET/SDH, as well as other client interfaces.

Sierra Wireless reported Q4 2018 revenue of $201.4 million, an increase of 9.7% compared to $183.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. Product revenue was $178.2 million, up 5.3% year-over-year, and Services and other revenue was $23.2 million, up 63.0% compared to the fourth quarter of 2017. Net loss was $3.8 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to net loss of $3.5 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2017. Non GAAP Net earnings amounted to $9.0 million, or $0.25 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to net earnings of $9.2 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Quarterly revenue for the three business segments was as follows: (i) Revenue from OEM Solutions was $148.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 6.4% compared to $139.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2017; (ii) Revenue from Enterprise Solutions was $30.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, down 5.1% compared to $31.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2017; and (iii) Revenue from IoT Services was $22.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 89.1%, compared to $11.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2017, driven by the contribution from Numerex and organic subscriber growth.

“We are accelerating the transformation of the company into a global IoT solutions and services provider. We are centralizing our R&D, combining our global sales team and driving efficiency programs throughout our operations,” said Kent Thexton, President and CEO of Sierra Wireless.